Read, Read, Read, Everything

With eternal gratitude to Bruinhilda the Librarian, for writing this. And with lots of apologies for stealing it wholesale and making it my new reading manifesto :) As a library worker, there’s something I want to say to you. You do not have to apologize for the books you choose to read. At all. To anyone. You owe nobody any explanations; you need no excuse or “good reason” to be reading the book. ...

January 10, 2024 · Mario Jason Braganza

My Year in Reading, 2023 Edition

I normally hide Easter eggs or just random comments into my footnotes. And so normally it does not matter if you folk read it or not. But this post was really off the cuff and there are some details that have snuck into the footnotes. So, please do give ’em a peek courtesy, Tom Gauld ...

December 31, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

A New Hole Hawg, the Kobo Elipsa 2e

Update, 2024-02-16: Six months later … A couple of years ago, around this time, I upgraded to the best reading experience I could afford at the time. I got me a Kindle Oasis. I called it my Hole Hawg. And boy, has it served me like one. And while it has done, everything it promised it would do, I found myself outgrowing it and needing something more powerful. ...

July 10, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

Mandy Brown Celebrates Fifteen Years of Her Blog

This was a thread on my fediverse account, that grew too long. Posting it here, all together, the way my thoughts spilled out. All I knew about Mandy Brown when I began following her a year ago is she has a doggie called Furiosa she thinks about books the way I do she reads books and then writes about reading them, the way I always dreamed I could she’s a prominent member of my circle of the Eminent Dead Today, as she celebrates the quinceanera of her blog, I realised that she also: ...

June 15, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

Books Saved My Life

This post was first sent to my newsletter on January 27, 2023. You really ought to subscribe :) From A Velocity of Being. Art by Yara Kono An extract from the page I read today from A Velocity of Being. ...

February 10, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (2nd of February, 2023)

Long day today1. I thought I got nothing much done, until I wrote this post. So, more incentive to keep writing these. Python Learning about how to make keyword arguments stick. And how to think about structuring programs Devops Deep dive into how to add prow job listings to the dashboard and viceversa; how to go about looking for the job from the dashboard Urdu / French Lots of practice with vowels and the ‘jiim’ group of letters. Since I know Hindi, Urdu progress is much, much, much faster than French. I think that is because, I am forcing my English grammar / vocabulary on another Romance language that has Germanic influences. This is leading to a lot of cognitive dissonance and slow progress. Much of my Urdu vocabulary comes from Hindi, which I learnt as a kid, and I definitely did not go looking for the “right” way to speak it. Better to just do French similarly as well. While I cannot do immersion, I can do what I want to do with French. Begin reading what I want to. Whether I understand it or not. I realise this will take me a lot longer than Urdu or Hindi, but that’s ok. Émilie du Châtelet, Montaigne and Dumas are not going anywhere, and neither am I :) My frame of learning now, after doing these two languages, as well as the rest of the stuff I am doing, is to just begin doing2. And figure out / learn the rules, the grammar, the conventions as you go. Physical Activity They call it chest and arm day. I presume, the exercises are meant to strengthen them. Right now, it’s just a stiff, painful mess. I cannot wait for this phase to be over. Books / Reading Finished reading, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. It’s a hauntingly, beautiful book. A spiritual successor to the Little Prince and a Lindy book for sure. Feedback on this post? Mail me at feedback@janusworx.com P.S. Subscribe to my mailing list! Forward these posts and letters to your friends and get them to subscribe! P.P.S. Feed my insatiable reading habit. ...

February 2, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza